Tonight I experienced of one of the best seafood dinners of my lifetime. Since the market has been predictably predictable, I will not insult your intelligence by telling you what it will do tomorrow. Instead, I will tell you about my dinner.
Background: I grew up in Charleston, S.C. We were in the boat, touring around the barrier islands and marshes, almost every weekend. I had the salty monofilament of a four-foot cast net between my teeth long before I ever had the pleasure of a girl’s kiss. Throughout high school and college, I worked as a cook, in some really nasty and some really fantastic seafood restaurants. I know seafood.
And I know that Big Sams Inlet Cafe & Raw Bar in Virginia Beach is the real deal.
With a “local’s only” atmosphere and a great view of the marina, I knew when we walked in that if the food was good, we had struck seafood silver, or cotton, or name your inflated commodity. On a Wednesday night in the off-season, the place was packed.
The food was f!@#$%^ fantastic. I had the Chesapeake Bay Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes with Bay Fries and Cole Slaw and my wife had the Sesame Seared Yellow Fin Tuna, served over veggies in a soy and cashew reduction. Trust me, it doesn’t get any better.
Yes, that is the leaning tower of tuna. Don’t let the plastic cups fool you, the presentation was perfect. The phone picture doesn’t do it justice.
Look, if you ever find yourself in Virginia Beach, get off the beaten path, avoid the company of pasty fat slobs from the mid-west, and eat at Big Sams.
I want to grub that so badly.
It was unbelievably good.
Reading here the last couple of days, first what fly had to say about the unhealthy, pork-fat eating southerners, and then what someone else had to say about the rude, obnoxious yankees, and then you talking about the pasty fat slobs of the mid west – well it’s just all too funny.
I have never had a lump crab cake like we had up in Maryland, though.
I love, love, love Southern food, myself. But lately we have been eating in Greek restaurants, and I’m telling you those Greeks do know how to cook. I know that was random, but since food seems to be the subject… 🙂
Gonna visit this summer
Kiddos will like it too.
That’s my hometown! I grew up in the Southeastern most corner of Virginia Beach, a stretch of land just a few miles wide called Sandbridge, great place but about 35 minutes out from the downtown boardwalk area.
If you’re going, look at renting in Croatan. Everything off of Croatan Rd. – look to the bottom of http://www.bigsamsrawbar.com/map.htm – is one neighborhood. There are no derelicts at the Croatan beach, and you’re just 10 minutes away from the boardwalk. Besides, who wants a room on the beach when you can have a house on the beach? Follow up Sam’s with dinner at Tautog’s the second night.
We stayed in Sandbridge.
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Watch for the black flies.
We did an abbreviated stay one summer on our way to the OBX. Fucking biting black flies made it miserable to be on the beach.
I think it has to do with which way the wind is blowing, though, so you could escape it.
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I guess the food gets high Iron Chef marks for taste but zero points for presentation and originality.
dough, you are wrong. I have eaten and cooked a variety of tuna recipes. The presentation and recipe were both original. It was drizzled with some sort of horseradish cream, for goodness sake! As for the crabcakes, they were crabcakes. You don’t mess with crabcakes. The very essence of a good cake is simplicity.
THE best restaurant in Virginia — Inn an Little Washington.
Agreud!
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Well, they sure do mess with them down here (Florida), because we have yet to find anywhere that makes them like they do up there. And they say they are “lump” but they are flat, hard and filled with crackers or something.
I was going to post this link on GW’s thread because I thought it might help calm him down as he seemed a little pissed right off about the state of things, but it’s gone now. We used to listen to this concert years ago, over and over again and I just found it again.
This concert was entirely improvised, I am told. Anyway, in case someone needs something to listen to.
Keith Jarrett, The Koln Concert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wivo94ylmhE
I see your Koln with some Korn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vun6JhJUyUc
LOL
Indeud!!!
You may be dead on with your last. It certainly feels like every time the market tries to shore up, it get met with more selling.
gets*